BS: Politics quotations

Subject: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:26 AM

Anyone else feel like catching a break from the latest horse race news?

Come on in.

To get the ball rolling:

Aesop:

    We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

Aldous Huxley:

    At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

Benjamin Whichcote:

    Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.

And then, one of my favorite political philosophers:

Dave Barry:

    The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:30 AM

Oooh! I just found this one, and I like it!

Henrik Ibsen:

    It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:38 AM

Simon says:

... the dangling conversations
and the superficial sighs
on the borders of our lives.

The immortal Ratso Rizzo:

I'm walkin' here I'm walkin' heeyah!!

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:49 AM

And Great Writers for the Ages quotes:

Mark Twain:

    Wherefore being all of one mind, we do highly resolve that government of the grafted by the grafter for the grafter shall not perish from the earth.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.


Sinclair Lewis:

    When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.

Robert Anton Wilson:

    It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.

Albert Camus :

    By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Edward R. Murrow:

    Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

Edward R. Murrow:

    A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

Jane Auer:

    It may be true that the government that governs best governs least. Unfortunately, the same is also true of the government that governs worst.

Ambrose Bierce:

    An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.

Bill Vaughan:

    A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.

Gore Vidal:

    Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Herbert Marcuse:

    Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

Niccolo Machiavelli:

    Each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election. However, this system was disastrous when the city had become corrupt. For then it was not the most virtuous but the most powerful who stood for election, and the weak, even if virtuous, were too frightened to run for office.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:53 AM

Walt Whitman:

    Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between [people], and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:56 AM

And I'll end for now with a musical quote:

Jimmy Buffett :

    Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: mrdux
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:22 AM

cool. here's a handful:

         "Public opinion in democratic societies is indeed a pitiless dictatorship."

                                -- Charles Baudelaire


        "Suppose you were an idiot. . .And suppose you were a member of Congress. . . But I repeat myself."

                                –- Mark Twain


       "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

                                –- H.L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, July 26, 1920.


        "I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind."

                                –- Mencken's Creed


        "Poor people have access to the courts in the same sense that the Christians had access to the lions."

                                –- Judge Earl Johnson, Jr.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: mrdux
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:24 AM

. . . and a few more:


       "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

                                –- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., Speech during 1952 Presidential Campaign


        "The only thing you find in the middle of the road is a yellow stripe and a dead armadillo."        

                                –- Jim Hightower


        "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
   
                                    –- George Bernard Shaw


              "Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac."

                                –- George Orwell


        "The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."

                               -– Adlai E. Stevenson

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 05:20 AM

something I picked up from "The Economist' in the days when George W. was Governor & running for another term.

He & his opponent made different claims using the same figures in a Government report & the spokesman of the West Texas Residents Association (or similar name) said

Statistics will tell you anything if you torture them enough.

At the time I was working in a statistical area, so I used this for my screensaver!

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 09:59 AM

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and tv
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fu*king peasants as far as I can
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be..."

From John Lennon's song, "Working Class Hero"...

More later...perhaps...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,CeazyEddie
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 04:21 AM

A comment on the Inclosures Act:

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common;
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from the goose.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: freda underhill
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 04:55 AM

I don't mind the Liberals, and still less do I mind the Country Party calling me a bastard. In some circumstances, I'm only doing my job if they do. But I hope you won't publicly call me a bastard as some bastards in the Caucus have. - former Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam

The man is a paranoiac, he's a fanatic, and he's a bigot.   What makes it all the more nauseating is, of course, that Bjelke-Peterson is such a Bible-bashing bastard. - former Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: freda underhill
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 04:58 AM

In 1966 the Premier of New South Wales in 1966 (Robin Askin, known as Robert Askin),was giving President Lyndon Johnston a guided tour of the streets of Sydney when a mob of anti-Vietnam protestors spilled out into the street in from of their car. Without blinking an eyelid, Mr Askin leaned over to the police escort and growled, "Run the bastards over".

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 08:15 AM

Oh how I wish we could hear an American politician utter the words "Bible bashing bastard"!

American politicians are SO plastic and phony, so scripted, and so robotic in their speech. It is just plain scary listening to them.

Yes we can!

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 11:37 AM

Boll weevil ate up half the cotton
Bankers stole the rest
Didn't leave that poor old farmer's wife
But one old raggedy dress
And it's full of holes...

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Amos
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 07:21 PM

With courage you will dare to take risks,
have the strength to be compassionate
and the wisdom to be humble.
Courage is the foundation of integrity.

                  Keshavan Nair

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 08:54 PM

...A pirate who had been taken captive gave [Alexander the Great] a neat and truthful answer. When Alexander asked what it was that impelled him to make the sea unsafe, he replied "That which caused you to do the same on land; but whereas I do it with one ship I am called a pirate; you, because you do it with a large fleet, are called an emperor.... As a matter of right there is no difference between us except that he is the worse who is the more ruthless in plundering, the more contemptible in disregarding justice, and the more brazen in disregard for laws. These I flee, but you wage wars against them; I have a degree of respect for them; you flout them. It is bad luck and financial difficulties that have made me a thief; it is intolerable pride and insensate greed that have made the same of you. Should fortune smile perhaps I would become a better man, but with you the more fortunate you are, the worse you will become!"
Alexander marveled at the moral courage of the man.... "I'll make an experiment" he told him "and see whether you will be a better man. I shall change your luck...." So he had him enrolled in his service, that he might thereafter lead a soldier's life without transgressing the laws. -- Policraticus, retelling Cicero

I wouldn't mind being a pirate if it gave me the chance to make a speech like that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,John Doe
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 08:38 AM

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
Emma Goldman

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.
Emma Goldman

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.
Emma Goldman

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.
Emma Goldman

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Vic at work
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 08:21 AM

I don't know where this came from ,it could also relate to any country in the world.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, this is normally long enough to become President of the US of A.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: autolycus
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 03:02 PM

Sandra, is that comment about statistics true?

meanwhile,

When i give food to the poor, they call me a saint; when i ask why they have no food, they call me a communist.

Dom Holder Camara, Archbishop in N.E.Brazil




Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:56 AM

"The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic,
but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth."
-Walter Lippmann, journalist (1889-1974)

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless,
unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt speaking about the economy in his First Inaugural Address (1933)

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: autolycus
Date: 07 May 08 - 02:04 PM

The FDR quote is great.

And fear, alas, has huge ramifications far beyond the question of change. it helps drive out entire society.


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: bankley
Date: 07 May 08 - 04:44 PM

"History is bunk" ...... Henry Ford

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: autolycus
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:55 PM

I think it's actually,"History id mostly bunk", not thr same thing.

   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: bankley
Date: 07 May 08 - 07:29 PM

dunno ...wasn't there   kinda like Christianity... 'render unto Caesar".... and all that

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:36 PM

Re: "Statistics will tell you anything if you torture them enough." See this article that illustrates the art of spin, as applied to survey results: Bart vs. First Amendment.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: autolycus
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:59 AM

"Man is a political animal." Soctates, or some twit like that.
iow, everybody spins.

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: autolycus
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:18 PM

No, not the twit Soctates, but the great thinker, Socrates.

,slips away thinking I've got away with it.>

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 09 May 08 - 05:07 AM

On the 10th of August
Just before dawn
I shot a hen pheasant
In standing corn
On the Sabbath.

Now tell me who can
Five greater transgressions against god and man.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Micca
Date: 09 May 08 - 07:24 AM

" The desire to be elected should preclude one from standing for office" (Adlai Stevenson, I think)

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: GUEST,Crapaud
Date: 09 May 08 - 12:04 PM

Burke: "Men are qualified for freedom in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free."

Churchill: "No-one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst sort of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

J S Mill: "If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great jointstock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards became departments of the central administration; if the employees of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this country free otherwise than in name."

(One time) Czech President Václav: "Illiberal ideas are becoming to be formulated, spread and preached under the name of ideologies or "isms", which have - at least formally and nominally - nothing in common with the old-style, explicit socialism. These ideas are, however, in many respects similar to it. There is always a limiting (or constraining) of human freedom, there is always ambitious social engineering, there is always an immodest 'enforcement of a good' by those who are anointed on others against their will, there is always the crowding out of standard democratic methods by alternative political procedures, and there is always the feeling of superiority of intellectuals and of their ambitions."

Burke: "Nothing can be more absurd and dangerous than to tamper with the natural foundations of society, in hopes of keeping it up by artificial contrivances."

Lord Acton (1834-1902): "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."

Burke again: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Justice Robert H. Jackson: "It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."

Thomas Jefferson: "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion." Letter to William Charles Jarvis (September 28, 1820)

Groucho Marx: I am now convinced that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: autolycus
Date: 11 May 08 - 11:05 AM

"You may not be into politics; but politics is into you." (graffito at University of East Anglis, 1970s)

btw,

that alleged Burke quote in the previous post has never been found in any of Burke's writings.

Most Quotations Dictionaries leave it at 'attrib(uted)'


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Politics quotations
From: Donuel
Date: 12 May 08 - 11:20 AM

Bright times, good times
laughter and fun
may have been bought
by the end of a gun.


Hard times, end times
with great sorow to come.
Still, the dark age
will be golden for some.

dh